Deep Space Probe Fly By & New Moons Around Pluto; Perhaps It Really IS A Planet After All!
Is the Pluto System Dangerous?
November 7, 2011
Pluto's newest found moon, P4, orbits between Nix and Hydra, both of which orbit beyond Charon. Could there be still more moons of Pluto? Perhaps, and the New Horizons team plans to look harder to ensure that we don't run into something that could damage or destroy New Horizons.
New Horizons remains healthy and on course, now almost twenty two times as far from the Sun as the Earth is, and approaching six years into its 9.5-year journey to the Pluto system.
We’ve taken the spacecraft out of hibernation to perform maintenance activities, and to re-point our radio antenna to compensate for Earth’s movement around its orbit. This “hibernation wakeup” started November 5 and will last until November 15. Then New Horizons will hibernate again until early January, when we’ll perform a more extensive, almost month-long wakeup.
I’ll provide an update soon about how the November hibernation wakeup went and what’s in store for the January wake up and our cruise to Active Checkout 6, which begins next May. But in this PI’s log, I want to concentrate on a question that has recently come to the fore on the mission: “Is the Pluto system dangerous to New Horizons?”
If you’re wondering what I mean, I’m referring to the fact that the more moons that pop up in the system, the more we have to worry that there are still more undiscovered moons that are too small and faint to detect. When we discovered P4 this summer, along with possible evidence of a couple of still-fainter moons (something we need more study to confirm or reject), we began to worry about just how many tiny moons Pluto might have and whether we might have to dodge them.
Even more worrisome than the possibility of many small moons themselves is the concern that these moons will generate debris rings, or even 3-D debris clouds around Pluto that could pose an impact hazard to New Horizons as it flies through the system at high speed. After all, at our 14-kilometer-per-second flyby speed, even particles less than a milligram can penetrate our micrometeoroid blankets and do a lot of damage to electronics, fuel lines and sensors.
So to assess that hazard, we brought together about 20 of the world’s experts in ring systems, orbital dynamics and state-of-the-art astronomical observing techniques to search for small satellites and rings at distant Pluto. This group convened November 3-4 at the Southwest Research Institute’s offices in Boulder, Colo., where the New Horizons science team is centered. During this two-day workshop, a series of technical talks and discussions sections examined every aspect of the hazards that debris and small moons orbiting in the Pluto system might pose.
The presenters and attendees of the New Horizons Pluto Encounter Hazards Workshop on November 4, 2011.
We found a plausible chance that New Horizons might face real danger of a killer impact; and that to mitigate that hazard, we need to undertake two broad classes of work.
First, we need to look harder at the Pluto system for still undiscovered satellites and rings. The best tools for this are going to be the Hubble Space Telescope, some very large ground-based telescopes, telescopes that can make stellar occultation observations of the space between Pluto and Charon where New Horizons is currently targeted, and thermal observations of the system by the ALMA radio telescope array just now being commissioned.
Then, we need to plan for an alternate, safer route through the Pluto system in case those observations reveal strong evidence that our current trajectory is too hazardous. Studies presented at the Encounter Hazards Workshop indicate that a good “safe haven bailout trajectory” (or SHBOT) could be designed to target a closest-approach aim point about 10,000 kilometers farther than our nominal mission trajectory. More specifically, a good candidate SHBOT aim point would be near Charon’s orbit, but about 180 degrees away from Charon on closest-approach day. Why this location? Because Charon’s gravity clears out the region close to it of debris, creating a safe zone.
Making this situation still more complex is the fact that debris created in the Pluto system may not lie in a plane, as in other ring systems, but might instead be contained in a fat torus (donut-shaped) or even a nearly-spherical 3-D cloud if the debris coming off small satellites has high velocity (such debris is created by impactors from the Kuiper Belt, which hit at pretty high speeds of 1-2 kilometers per second.)
The question of whether the Pluto system could be hazardous to New Horizons remains open –but one we’ll be studying hard over the next year, with everything from computer models to big ground-based telescopes to the Hubble.
I’ll report on results as we obtain them, but it is not lost on us that there is a certain irony that the very object of our long-held scientific interest and affection may, after so many years of work to reach her, turn out to be less hospitable than other planets have been. We’ll see.
Yeater Bieber?
Mariah Yeater Says Baby Will Take DNA Test
41 minutes ago
Now that Justin Bieber has taken a DNA test to hopefully squash allegations from Mariah Yeater that he fathered her 4-month-old son, Yeater’s camp is saying that her son Tristynn will indeed take a test as well despite nearly a week of silence since Bieber’s submission.
Yeater’s lawyers tell TMZ that the 19-year-old will submit her son for testing, hoping to prove her claims that Bieber is his biological father. The lawyers also say that someone from their team should have been present when DNA samples were taken from Bieber so that they could ensure the accuracy and reliability of the tests.
From the beginning, Bieber has insisted that he is not the father of Yeater’s baby, and has made several public statements stating his case. During an interview on Today, Bieber took a stand, saying to Matt Lauer: “I’d just like to say basically that none of those allegations are true … I know I’m going to be a target, but I’m never going to be a victim.”
The Today host pushed further, asking if he’d ever met the young woman. Biebs responded:
“Never met the woman… It’s crazy. Every night after the show I’ve gone right from the stage right to the car, so it’s crazy that some people want to make such false allegations.”
After Bieber took the DNA test, he quickly whisked himself west to Los Angeles, where on Sunday night he got all dressed up with girlfriend Selena Gomez and hit the American Music Awards in style.
How To Find Your Way Across The Galaxy...
Subway Map of the Milky Way Galaxy
In the Milky Way Transit Authority, Samuel Arbesman has taken the subway map infographic style and applied it to the Milky Way, using stars and nebula as the station points. The lines do correlate to the spiral arms of the galaxy.
Each line on the map corresponds to an arm of the galaxy, and the ‘stations’ are places in their actual locations, albeit stars, nebula and other astronomical objects. The inspiration for the schematic representation came after he re-read Carl Sagan’s novel ‘Contact’, which alludes to a cosmic Grand Central Station. The idea drew him to analyse the first modern subway map, London’s Tube map, which was designed by Harry Beck.
Hans Sulu?
Tiangong, the Chinese manned space station
Tiangong, the Chinese manned space station
The China National Space Administration has big plans for the near future. Chinese authorities announced that the first Chinese manned space station currently named Tiangong (“Heavenly Palace” in free translation) will be fully completed by 2020. The Project 921-2 consisting in building a module type space station was launched in 1992.
The first module consisting in a apace laboratory named Tiangong 1 is scheduled to be launched in October 2011. This target vehicle is made of a lab module, a resource module and a docking mechanism, having a final mass of only 9 tons. In this phase a crew of three astronauts will go in space with Tiangong 1 for a short term stay in space.
The astronauts on board of Tiangong 1 are not the first Chinese traveling to space. The history of human traveling in space for China started in 2003 when Yang Liwei became the first Chinese astronaut ever to travel in space aboard Shenzhou-5.
Another successful mission for Chinese space program followed in 2008, when another three Chinese astronauts aboard the Shenzhou-7, carried out successfully the first Chinese spacewalk.
The project Tiangong is developed fully by Chinese capabilities, with no connections to other countries that also have space programs.
The “Heavenly Palace” will weight only about 60 tons which is extremely light in comparison to the 419 tons of the International Space Station or the 137 tons of the MIR station. A strength of the project Chinese space station consists in the superior technology that will be used for the multi-modular system.
China also has planes to launch a second lunar probe in October 2011 as a first step and in preparation for an unmanned moon landing by the end of 2012. A manned lunar mission will be possible in few years being proposed as a target date the year 2017.
Harvest Moon? Happy Halloween!
A Gangsta Moon!
Moonalith?
Or tip of a spacecraft?
Or Space Station Zebra?
And I Thought The Flash Invented This...
Link To Original SIte
Video: Invisibility cloak uses mirage-like shimmering to conceal
We write a lot about invisibility cloaks 'round these parts. Ever wanted to see one in action? Well, here's your chance, courtesy the researchers over at the University of Dallas in Texas.
In trying to wrap your head around how this works, think about a mirage. The sheet you see up there is made up of molecule-thick carbon nanotubes, which heat up quick and a bunch of them can transfer said heat across a surface fast. That's important, because heat is a key component in creating a mirage, or more specifically a photothermal deflection, which is what you're seeing here.
A good ol' fashioned mirage like you see out in the desert is actually an optical trick that can be captured on film. It's all about temperature differential: light is turning as it passes over a desert surface, and through denser, colder air into warm air. That phantom water you see is actually a reflection of the sky through the bending light, and your mind trying to make sense of what's really there. If there was something really there, like, say, a shrub, youwouldn't see it. Here's a handy illustration of the concept via HowStuffWorks:
The team at the University of Dallas is using this very same trick to make the sheet in the video below seemingly disappear. It is remarkable to see this cloaking device demonstrated in real life and on a workable scale," a spokesperson for the Institute of Physics told Wired. "The array of applications that could arise from this device, besides cloaking, is a testament to the excellent work of the authors."
You can read a full brief of their work right here.
IOPscience, via Wired
Mirage image via HowStuffWorks
Things I'd Like To Make/Invent: A Collapsble Bow For Archery...
Well, I have three bows. When you carry them, especially in a case... it adds up. So, why not invent a bow with a push pin in the grip that lets the handle function like a hinged fork where the top half of the bow insert between the bottom fork at the grip. A push pin releases. Advantage? When it collapses it's about the length of a quiver or an arrow. Make sure you de-string it first.
Things I'd Like To Be Able To Make: The Cell Phone Watch
With the world moving to larger smart phones and iPads, perhaps the time has come for the cell phone to once again become relegated to an accesory rather than a component to tote. Currently, I have a necklace made of a leather cord and a clip upon which I carry my bluetooth headset when not in use. I hate looking like a cybernetic organism (Cyborg) wearing it all day. Imagine if the following were available...
Then you would have one less thing to carryy in your cargo pants.
Tsunami Video From Inside A Car On A Street As The Tsunami Hit...
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=IQqmp9OOE1E&vq=medium
The above link will give you a menu of additional Tsunami footage at its end.
Or, go here...
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=IQqmp9OOE1E&vq=medium
Before Terrorist And 911 There Was… The U. S. Army Air Corp???
Recently a friend got to pilot the “Killer Bee”, a WWII vintage Mitchell B-25 from Titusville to Ft. Myers, Florida to celebrate the opening of the new Page Field Aviation Center. This flight for my friend, retired U. S. Airways pilot and flight instructor Tony Pomponio was an event that is without hesitation a life achievement for any aviator or student of history. Not only was he asked to fly down with them, he was placed in the left seat and actually flew them down. Incidentals included maintaining rudder pressure as the fuselage was bent and direct orders not to touch the brakes as each application cost $20. Initial start up included using their shoulders to manually turn the props before start up to loosen cylinders and circulate oil. Start up was a cloud of smoke and sparks from the ignition of unspent fuel. The entire flight for a seasoned pilot used to GPS and all the modern technologies? Visual Flight Rules (VFR)! There was a portable GPS set up on the dash (an act that may account for the compass not being accurate) but most of the flight was done the old fashioned way using maps, landmarks and dead reckoning. Before final approach, my “Maverick” friend got to buzz the tower. A fun ending to a ride of a lifetime in a plane full of history, an additional two man crew to hand pump the hydraulic reservoir, a bombay with dummy bombs and turrets with 50 calibers. And, he was complemented as one of the best landings noted by a long term crew member. The “Killer Bee” as it is labeled visits air shows. Keep an eye out for it.
In researching to history of the B-25 I was surprised to find an interesting tidbit of history. On Saturday, July 28, 1945 while en route to LaGuardia Airport on a flight from Boston, Lieutenant Colonel William Franklin Smith, Jr. asked for clearance to land his B-25D but was advised of zero visibility. At 0940 hours (9:40 AM) after turning right instead of left after passing the Chrysler Building, the “Old John Feather Merchant” he was piloting crashed into the north side of the Empire State Building between the 78th and 80th floors.
Apart from gouging an 18 by 20 foot whole in the building where the National Catholic Welfare Council offices were located one engine continued through the building and fell onto the roof of another in the next city block where it started a fire destroying the penthouse. The other engine and landing gear went down an elevator shaft. Fortunately the ensuing fire was extinguished in only 40 minutes. Praises to the construction engineering of that day, yay! I is still the only fire at such height that was successfully controlled. While fourteen people (including the 3 crew) were killed, Betty Lou Oliver, an elevator operator (yes that was a career position back then) was injured but recovered considering that the elevator she was evacuated in had damaged cables and plunged 75 stories. This fall is also a survival record. This was definitely not a day to be in a hurry to get to the office.
Was the Empire State Building demolished? Was it closed indefinitely? No. Remarkably, the Empire State Building was open for business the following Monday. The structural integrity of the building was not compromised although a whopping one million US dollars’ in damage was done.
In light of this incident it was a consideration in the design and building of the World Trade Centers to withstand the impact of a Boeing 707. Placing conspiracy theories aside, it is evident the aircraft that hit the towers on 9/11 obviously were of greater mass than a single 707.
Great Article on the Teasters...
Tea Party Made Up of 'Freaked Out White Men': Whitney
Published: Wednesday, 10 Aug 2011 | 9:27 AM ET
Text Size
By: Jeff Cox
CNBC.com Staff Writer
CNBC.com Staff Writer
Tea Party members are primarily “freaked out white men” who pose the greatest political threat to Democrats in 2012, according to banking analyst Meredith Whitney.
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Jin Lee | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Meredith Whitney
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Speaking in the broader context of a discussion on CNBC regarding the Standard & Poor’s downgrade of U.S. debt, Whitney said the dissenters represent the type of problems that have led to the current predicament in Washington.
“Call it Tea Party, whatever you will, the fringe element is I characterize (as) freaked-out white men who are unemployed and have been unemployed for three years and they’re scared to death,” she said. “Three to four million of them are about to roll off unemployment benefits in the next three to four months. This is only going to get worse.”
Democrats looking to hold the White House and regain full control of Congress will need to take note.
“For this reason you have to deal with the structural issues,” Whitney said. “If you are a Machiavellian Democrat you want do deal with this issue and defuse the Tea Party as fast as you possibly can because this poses the biggest threat to their re-election in 2012.”
Her comments come at a turbulent time for markets, which saw a more than 600-point drop for the Dow industrials on Monday that was followed by a more than 400-point gain on Tuesday.
Economic uncertainty is at the crux of the tumult, with investors caught between crosswinds of debt issues in Europe and the U.S. as well as the threat of rising unemployment.
Whitney said extending unemployment benefits, which already have been pushed to 99 weeks, is not the answer.
“You feel better about yourself when you’re working. Kids feel better about their parents when they’re working. Having a job is more than having a paycheck,” Whitney said. “To push for the extension of unemployment benefits is going to and should unleash absolute backlash against this administration because that’s a horrendous idea.”
Is Santa Claus Radioactive?
Found this in Mother Jones... great publication...
Transpolar Flights: Good for the Planet, Bad for Your Health?
DonateMon May. 30, 2011 2:30 AM PDT
Last month, I flew on a direct flight from DC's Dulles Airport to Beijing. About eight hours into the flight, I was surprised to learn that we were flying straight over the North Pole. From the window, I could see the vast stretches of ice floes and not much else. The plane was flying low enough that a man near the galley window took a photo with his iPhone that showed distinct snowy peaks. Passengers jokingly asked children whether they could see Santa Claus. It was eerily bright. Big cracks across the ice revealed canyon-like patches of open water. I had visions of what it must have been like when Ernest Shackleton got the Endurance stuck in the ice near the South Pole.
As cool as it was to be flying over the top of the world, I had the distinct feeling that maybe this wasn't such a good idea. Some of my misgivings were for safety reasons: There aren't a whole lot of places to land out there should someone try smoking in the lavatory or if an engine falls off. But also, the North Pole looked, to my eye at least, like untouched wilderness. It's the last really unexplored place on earth, and it seemed like even the odd commercial jet could really disturb some critical if poorly understood ecological balance. But really, what did I know? I was just a random passenger.
So when I got home, I decided to consult some experts to see what the possible environmental impacts might be, if any. What I learned is that flights over the North Pole have a lot of net benefits for the environment in terms of climate change. But those benefits have to be weighed against some fairly serious potential health issues for passengers—none of which were disclosed to us when I booked my ticket.
Commercial flights directly over the North Pole are a fairly new phenomenon. They weren't really an option for Americans until the Soviet Union fell apart and the Russians stopped worrying so much that we were going to drop bombs on them. But since about 2000, the number of transpolar flights has increased considerably.
In terms of environmental impact, those developments may be a good thing, because they shave significant amounts of flying time off trips from the US to Asia, saving hundreds of gallons of jet fuel and reducing the pollution produced by the jets. When Canadian officials were contemplating opening up the airways to more commercial jets over the North Pole in 2000, they estimated that the route would knock five hours off the usual flying time for a trip from New York to Hong Kong, for instance. That's serious money—and jet fuel.
One of aviation's biggest contributions to climate change is the contrail, those clouds of condensed water vapor created by the jet exhaust. Because they trap outgoing radiation from the earth, the contrails are thought to contribute to global warming. I thought maybe some of this could be more pronounced at the North Pole, where holes in the ozone tend to show up, and where there are already myriad concerns that the ice is quickly melting from increased global temperatures. But David Fahey, a research physicist with NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory who studies the upper atmosphere, says that he suspects that the arctic climate at the pole isn't very conducive to contrails, so that's probably not an issue. He posits that the Earth may be better off with more jets flying over the pole.
People on those jets, however, might not be. One of the complications of flying over the North Pole is that planes and their passengers are exposed to significantly more radiation, especially during solar storms, than they would be on a traditional route. That's because the planes travel through the thinnest layer of the magnetosphere, which typically shields the earth and other commercial flights from cosmic radiation.
When the transpolar flights were first considered in 2000, scientists estimated that flying over the North Pole would expose passengers to the amount of radiation they'd get in three chest X-rays, which could be hazardous to pregnant women. (Traditional routes would have exposure similar to less than two X-rays.) In 2009 NASA researchers discovered that during a 2003 solar storm, people flying over the North Pole would have been exposed to about 12 percent of the annual radiation limit recommended by experts, significantly more than regular commercial flights.
Along with the radiation issues, flying over the North Pole presents some safety issues, in part because of the lack of places to land in an emergency (a concern when flying over the Pacific Ocean as well), but also because the magnetic forces and solar activity at the pole can really screw up navigation and communications systems. Planes making transpolar flights need special equipment to keep from getting lost—as the Korean Air flight 902 did when trying to make the polar route in 1978, prompting the Soviets to open fire and kill two passengers on the jet. There haven't been any major polar air disasters recently, but it's still something to consider when you book your ticket.
When it comes to weighing the environmental pluses and the health and safety minuses, taking a flight that may cross the pole is a complicated equation. If you're an infrequent traveler, the polar flight probably makes sense. If you're pregnant, you might want to take the long route or stay home. And if you travel to Asia a lot, Fahey jokes, "Wear lead-lined clothes next time."
Got a burning eco-quandary? Submit it to econundrums@motherjones.com. Get all your green questions answered by visiting Econundrums on Facebook here.
Stephanie Mencimer is a staff reporter in Mother Jones' Washington bureau. For more of her stories, click here. You can also follow her on twitter. Get Stephanie Mencimer's RSS feed.Osama's death 'a good career move'?
| Osama's death 'a good career move'? |
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Al-Qaeda's leader might appear to have died with a bang, but he had long since died with a whimper.
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This in from english.aljazeera
For Osama bin Laden, violent death must have come as a blessing. It has given him, at least fleetingly, a seeming prominence that in fact had long since ebbed away, not only in the Muslim world, but even within al-Qaeda itself. One supposes that for bin Laden, if he had any clear conception of his place in the world nearly 10 years after the attack which brought him to global prominence, life must have become unbearable. For the violent extremists whom bin Laden has sponsored and encouraged, it is a mark of pride that they seek death for what they believe. And even for those among them who hide in the shadows, it is with the conviction that they live today to strike at their enemies tomorrow. Consider, then, what it must have been like for such an ego to fade into functional obscurity. As he was reduced to issuing occasional audio tapes of increasing irrelevance, even the core of the organisation he founded learned to live without him. And the scattered little groups around the globe which had appropriated the al-Qaeda name in fact had little connection to bin Laden's organisation, and still less to bin Laden himself. Indeed, what must have been most crushing for bin Laden was the rise of the so-called Arab Spring. The very people in the Arab world whose concerns bin Laden claimed most importantly to represent have revealed the utter fallacy at the heart of Sheikh Osama's message. Even more importantly, the world which those responsible for the uprisings throughout the Arab world are trying to construct for themselves looks nothing like the dark, obscurantist vision of bin Laden and his core followers. Even the most radically anti-western of the genuine religious leaders in the Muslim world have long since soundly rejected the Takfiri doctrines perpetrated by al-Qaeda. It may seem an odd analogy, but I am put in mind of a former Hollywood celebrity who had long since been personally repudiated by the public, whose death a number of years ago was described unkindly by one wag as a "good career move". Earlier, he was the deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia, and also served as the CIA’s chief of operational training. He is credited with founding the CIA's Counter-proliferation Division. Grenier is now a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, is Chairman of ERG Partners, a financial advisory and consulting firm - and speaks and writes frequently on foreign policy issues. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy. |
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Source:
Al Jazeera
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It's A Bird, It's A Plane, ...It's A ... Bar????
Or, The Sandman Cometh... At Least After A Few Beers!
FOOD REVIEW:
Jimmy's Sandtrap: Easy To Get In, Hard To Get Out...
Jimmy has been in the business a long time. He has a following. And his expertise makes this a great watering hole.
Great corned beef. Having lived in Miami and worked restaurants, Jimmy knows corned beef. Oi!
Beer? Jimmy's got beer. Check it out.
Service with a smile? He's got it above all.
Potatoe, potatoe, potatoe... He got a Harley too.
Jimmy's is centrally located for Sarasota clientele. It's to the east of Southgate mall.
Had it been me, I would have simply called it "Jimmy's". Great name if I say so myself.
There have been many famous "Jimmys"....
Now there is one more.
A Rational Evaluation Of Statistics: It's About Time Wage And Gender Were Correctly Viewed...And By A Woman At That!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704415104576250672504707048.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
- OPINION
- APRIL 12, 2011
There Is No Male-Female Wage Gap
A study of single, childless urban workers between the ages of 22 and 30 found that women earned 8% more than men.
By CARRIE LUKAS
Tuesday is Equal Pay Day—so dubbed by the National Committee for Pay Equity, which represents feminist groups including the National Organization for Women, Feminist Majority, the National Council of Women's Organizations and others. The day falls on April 12 because, according to feminist logic, women have to work that far into a calendar year before they earn what men already earned the year before.
In years past, feminist leaders marked the occasion by rallying outside the U.S. Capitol to decry the pernicious wage gap and call for government action to address systematic discrimination against women. This year will be relatively quiet. Perhaps feminists feel awkward protesting a liberal-dominated government—or perhaps they know that the recent economic downturn has exposed as ridiculous their claims that our economy is ruled by a sexist patriarchy.
The unemployment rate is consistently higher among men than among women. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 9.3% of men over the age of 16 are currently out of work. The figure for women is 8.3%. Unemployment fell for both sexes over the past year, but labor force participation (the percentage of working age people employed) also dropped. The participation rate fell more among men (to 70.4% today from 71.4% in March 2010) than women (to 58.3% from 58.8%). That means much of the improvement in unemployment numbers comes from discouraged workers—particularly male ones—giving up their job searches entirely.
Men have been hit harder by this recession because they tend to work in fields like construction, manufacturing and trucking, which are disproportionately affected by bad economic conditions. Women cluster in more insulated occupations, such as teaching, health care and service industries.
Yet if you can accept that the job choices of men and women lead to different unemployment rates, then you shouldn't be surprised by other differences—like differences in average pay.
Corbis
Feminist hand-wringing about the wage gap relies on the assumption that the differences in average earnings stem from discrimination. Thus the mantra that women make only 77% of what men earn for equal work. But even a cursory review of the data proves this assumption false.
The Department of Labor's Time Use survey shows that full-time working women spend an average of 8.01 hours per day on the job, compared to 8.75 hours for full-time working men. One would expect that someone who works 9% more would also earn more. This one fact alone accounts for more than a third of the wage gap.
Choice of occupation also plays an important role in earnings. While feminists suggest that women are coerced into lower-paying job sectors, most women know that something else is often at work. Women gravitate toward jobs with fewer risks, more comfortable conditions, regular hours, more personal fulfillment and greater flexibility. Simply put, many women—not all, but enough to have a big impact on the statistics—are willing to trade higher pay for other desirable job characteristics.
Men, by contrast, often take on jobs that involve physical labor, outdoor work, overnight shifts and dangerous conditions (which is also why men suffer the overwhelming majority of injuries and deaths at the workplace). They put up with these unpleasant factors so that they can earn more.
Recent studies have shown that the wage gap shrinks—or even reverses—when relevant factors are taken into account and comparisons are made between men and women in similar circumstances. In a 2010 study of single, childless urban workers between the ages of 22 and 30, the research firm Reach Advisors found that women earned an average of 8% more than their male counterparts. Given that women are outpacing men in educational attainment, and that our economy is increasingly geared toward knowledge-based jobs, it makes sense that women's earnings are going up compared to men's.
Should we celebrate the closing of the wage gap? Certainly it's good news that women are increasingly productive workers, but women whose husbands and sons are out of work or under-employed are likely to have a different perspective. After all, many American women wish they could work less, and that they weren't the primary earners for their families.
Few Americans see the economy as a battle between the sexes. They want opportunity to abound so that men and women can find satisfying work situations that meet their unique needs. That—not a day dedicated to manufactured feminist grievances—would be something to celebrate.
Ms. Lukas is executive director of the Independent Women's Forum.
Radiation in Japan, It's all Fuk'd Up...
Here are some links to Mother Jones (MoJo) which I have found to be a great altenative news reporting agency:
http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2011/04/radiation-seafood-japan
Is There Radiation in Your Seafood?
— By Kiera Butler
| Mon Apr. 11, 2011 2:30 AM PDT
seiho/FlickrThe oceans around Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant are beginning to show troubling signs of radioactivity. Recent tests by TEPCO found levels far surpassing legal limits, iodine by 7.5 million times and cesium by 1.1 million times. As MoJo environmental correspondent Julia Whitty has reported in several recent posts, radioactive material is now entering the marine food web, and will likely only continue to work its way up. And ocean currents are carrying the contaminants far and wide. As a result of the increased radiation levels, several countries, including Hong Kong, Russia, and India, have enacted temporary bans on Japanese seafood imports. But so far, there is no such ban in the US.
So should I steer clear of sushi?
Some experts believe that there's little cause for concern. Andrew Maidment, an associate professor of radiology at the University of Pennsylvania, points out that people are typically exposed to 3 millisieverts of "background radiation" every year. (Did you know that Fiesta ware, smoke detectors, and bananas all emit low levels of radiation?) Maidment says that according to data from TEPCO, eating seafood from near the Fukushima plant for a year would up your radiation exposure by .6 millisieverts, roughly a 20 percent increase from normal background exposure. "But all kinds of things can increase your radiation levels," says Maidment. "People who live at high altitudes can easily be exposed to twice the radiation of people at sea level, for example."
FDA spokeswoman Siobhan DeLancey assured me that so far, imported seafood that the agency has tested has not shown elevated levels of radiation. She attributed this in part to the ocean's ability to both dilute radiation and protect marine life. "Airborne radiation settles on the surface of the water and acts as a barrier to fish under the surface," she wrote in an email. "In the case of a direct release into the sea, the amount of water in the ocean rapidly dilutes and disperses the radiation to negligible levels."
But other scientists are not so sure that ocean ecosystems are in the clear. Over at Yale e360 Elizabeth Grossman has a great, comprehensive rundown of what scientists know about radiation's effect on sea life, and what they have yet to figure out. This is interesting:
How the radioactive materials released from the Fukushima plants will behave in the ocean will depend on their chemical properties and reactivity, explained Ted Poston, a ecotoxicologist with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, a U.S. government facility in Richland, Washington. If the radionuclides are in soluble form, they will behave differently than if they are absorbed into particles, said Poston. Soluble iodine, for example, will disperse rather rapidly. But if a radionuclide reacts with other molecules or gets deposited on existing particulates—bits of minerals, for example—they can be suspended in the water or, if larger, may drop to the sea floor.
Given all the unknowns, you'd think testing US oceans for radiation would be top priority for the government. Is it?
Sure doesn't seem like it. I emailed the National Oceanic and Atmostpheric Administration to ask how the agency was testing for radiation in the ocean. A spokeswoman would only tell me that "NOAA is playing a supporting role in the Administration's response effort." When I asked her to describe exactly what that role was, she declined to answer.
Meanwhile, the environmental health advocacy group Food & Water Watch has criticized the FDA for inadequate inspection of imported seafood. FWW executive director Wenonah Hauter told me that the agency inspects only 2 percent of all seafood imports. The FDA's DeLancey would neither confirm nor deny Hauter's assertion, saying only: "While it's difficult to quantify exactly how much of a given product is subject to inspection, FDA uses its knowledge of various import factors and vulnerabilities to target for the most efficient and effective public health intervention. Because of the potential for radionuclide contamination, we have chosen to screen all foods from Japan very stringently until the situation stabilizes."
So which elements could eventually wind up in my sushi, and how long will they stick around?
It's hard to find specific information about the health effects of radiation, but here's what I've cobbled together: The three radioactive elements present in greatest quantities around Fukushima are iodine-131, cesium-134, and cesium-137. Iodine is of the greatest immediate concern, since both humans and sea mammals accumulate it in the thyroid. Luckily, it only has a half-life of eight days, so the levels around Fukushima are already dropping dramatically. The cesiums, on the other hand, are more of a long-term risk: Cesium-134 has a half-life of two years, and cesium-137, 30 years. Damon Mogler, director of the climate and energy program at the environmental advocacy group Friends of the Earth, told me that "cesium builds up in bottom feeders, crustaceans and bivalves, which in turn get eaten by bigger fish, and ultimately, people." Maidment explains that since cesium is chemically similar to potassium, the body processes it similarly, meaning it can build up in muscle tissue.
What are the potential health effects of ingesting radiation from seafood?
No one knows yet whether the radiation from the Fukushima disaster will build up in levels high enough to cause human health problems, but we do know that accumulation of radiation in your body can lead to cancer. The EPA has a pretty good explanation of how it works here.
Are people eating less seafood because of radiation fears?
Yes, report Bloomberg and the NY Times. Several important fish auctions around the world were canceled in the wake of the nuclear disaster, and NPR reports that prices at Japan's famous Tsukiji fish market have "plummeted." FWIW, I called a local sushi restaurant called Tsukiji in Mill Valley, California, and they told me business had slowed down "a little bit" in recent weeks.
Got a burning eco-quandary? Submit it to econundrums@motherjones.com. Get all your green questions answered by visiting Econundrums on Facebook here.
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Japan's Radioactive Ocean
How Fukushima poisons work their way up the foodweb. -
Radioactive Fish and Birds: Dangers from Japan?
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The Radioactive Ocean
Radioactivity is increasing in the waters near Japan's Fukushima plant. But nuclear pollution in the oceans is nothing new.
A Gun That Shoots Around Corners? Almost...
No hiding place from new U.S. Army rifles that use radio-controlled smart bulletsThe XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement System has a range of roughly 2,300 feet - and is to be deployed in Afghanistan this monthThe rifle's gunsight uses a laser rangefinder to determine the exact distance to the obstruction, after which the soldier can add or subtract up to 3 metres from that distance to enable the bullets to clear the barrier and explode above or beside the target.Soldiers will be able to use them to target snipers hidden in trenches rather than calling in air strikes.The 25-millimetre round contains a chip that receives a radio signal from the gunsight as to the precise distance to the target.Lt. Col. Christopher Lehner, project manager for the system, described the weapon as a 'game-changer' that other nations will try and copy.He expects the Army to buy 12,500 of the XM25 rifles this year, enough for every member of the infantry and special forces.Lehner told FoxNews: 'With this weapon system,we take away cover from [enemy targets] forever.'Tactics are going to have to be rewritten.The only thing we can see [enemies] being able to do is run away.'Experts say the rifle means that enemy troops will no longerbe safe if they take coverThe XM25 appears perfect weapon for street-to-street fighting that troops in Afghanistan have to engage in, with enemy fighters hiding behind walls and only breaking cover to fire occasionally.The weapon's laser finder would work out how far away the enemy was and then the U.S. soldier would add one metre using a button near the trigger.When fired, the explosive round would carry exactly one metre past the wall and explode with the force of a hand grenade above the Taliban fighter.The army's project manager for new weapons, Douglas Tamilio, said:''This is the first leap-ahead technology for troops that we've beenable to develop and deploy.'A patent granted to the bullet's maker, Al liant Techsystems,reveals that the chip can calculate how far it has travelled.Mr Tamilio said: 'You could shoot a Javelin missile, and it would cost$70,000. These rounds will end up costing $25apiece.They're relatively cheap.Lehner added:'This is a game-changer.The enemy has learned to get cover, for hundreds if not thousands of years.'Well, they can't do that anymore.We're taking that cover from them and there's only two outcomes:We're going to get you behind that cover or force you to flee.'The rifle will initially use high-explosive rounds, but its makers say that it might later use versions with smaller explosive charges that aim to stun rather than kill..One of the revolutionary bullets which can be pre-programmedto explode to hit troops that are hidingGO ARMY GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oscar North As Jet Man?
IT’S A BIRD! IT’S A PLANE! IT’S … WHAT THE HECK IS THAT THING?
It weighs only 30 pounds and can be fully weaponized for assault and rescue. It has a 6-foot jet-wing that is steered with handheld rotary controls connected to its rudder. And it can hide more than 100 pounds of combat gear in a built-in compartment.
The Gryphon attack glider, designed to penetrate combat zones at 135 miles per hour, could revolutionize the art of parachuting.Its helmet has a heads-up display and provides on-board oxygen for the jump. To land, a soldier separates the wing from his pack and releases his parachute to slow his descent. The wing remains attached to the soldier by a cord and lands before him.
Currently, planes and pilots are put at risk because soldiers need to jump close to combat areas. Typical high altitude, high-opening, or HAHO, jumps from around 27,000 feet allow soldiers to travel only about 30 miles after exiting the aircraft.
The Gryphon could increase that range fourfold, creating an attack corridor of nearly 125 miles. Unaffected by headwinds or crosswinds because of its favorable lift-to-drag ratio, the glider would allow elite units to reach targets with increased speed, precision and stealth.
The Gryphon’s built-in oxygen supply system allows soldiers to jump from up to 30,000 feet. And with temperatures at that altitude sometimes reaching minus 64 degrees Fahrenheit, every second counts. Even in upwind conditions, the Gryphon could reduce HAHO jump duration to a third, from an average of 45 minutes to just 15, vastly reducing the risk of exposure to extreme cold.
The Gryphon’s designers, SPELCO GbR, are even planning to affix a relatively cheap and small turbo jet, which is used for unmanned military drones. Harnessing that jet, the glider would allow soldiers to jump lower, maintain altitude and travel farther than is currently possible.
I’m not totally sold on this one. If it can fly you 125 miles instead of the 30 miles you can get from a parasail, doesn’t that mean you’re falling a lot slower? And if you’re falling a lot slower, how does that make it possible to get down quicker out of the upper atmosphere where the temperature is deathly cold? Maybe they meant that you could do a power dive straight down, and then pull up and glide those same 30 miles but from a much lower altitude.
And while the Spec Ops guys will all want to try it, after the initial thrill wears off won’t this wing-thing be just another heavy bulky item they’ve got to hump around?
I like the idea of sticking a little jet engine on it, though that will add even more weight. I wonder if it would give you enough power to take off from the ground that way, or if this gizmo is going to wind up being called the Pteradactyl because it only flies after being dropped a long long way?
thanks for the link Rancino!
Here's the link to the original article
http://www.barking-moonbat.com/index.php/weblog/comments-editor/10610/
14000 Year Old Pyramids Submerged Off Coast Of Japan... Yonaguni-jima and the Lost Continent Of Mu?
This is additional discussion on the topic that I reported in a PRIOR BLOG ENTRY.
by Laura Lee
from LauraLee Website
YONAGUNI: The ancient underwater pyramid structure off the coast of Yonaguni-jima, Japan
Man-made, made by Nature, or did humankind finish what Nature started? These enigmatic, sunken stone structures off Okinawa, Japan, located 60 to 100 feet beneath the ocean surface, have the Japanese wondering if their homeland was once part of the lost continent of Mu.
Stone terraces, right angled block and walls, and stone circles encompassing hexagonal columns look intriguingly, if not conclusively, man made. A few more clues: an encircling road, what might be post holes supported long-gone wooden structures, what look like cut steps, and castles with similar architecture located nearby and still on land. (see photos; link at end of this article)
The two sites that are getting the most attention: near the city of Naha is Okinawa is what looks like a wall, with a coral encrusted right angled block. Another, just off the southern end of the tiny island of Yonaguni, the southernmost island of Japan, is an extensive site, with five irregular layers that look like ceremonial, terraced platforms. There are eight anomalous, underwater sites found to date.
Prof. Masaaki Kimura, a marine geologist with the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa has spent several years studying all eight sties, especially Yonaguni, which was found 13 years ago, in 1985.
Kimura believes these are monuments made by man, left by an unknown civilization, perhaps from the Asian mainland, home of our oldest civilizations. He reasons that if the five layers on the Yonaguni site had been carved by nature, you would find debris from the erosion to have collected around the site, but no rock fragments have yet been found. He adds that there is what look like a road encircling the site as further indication it was used by man. He believes building this monument necessitated a high degree of technology, and some sort of machinery.
How to date these sites? A few possible scenarios have been suggested. The sites may have been submerged when sea levels rose at the end of the last Ice Age as the continental ice sheets melted. Or, as Japan sits on the Ring of Fire, tectonic activity might have caused subsidence of the land. Or perhaps a combination of subsidence and inundation from rising sea levels, or some catastrophic event, dropped it, intact and upright, into the ocean.
Teruaki Ishii, a professor of geology at Tokyo University, believes the site is partly man-made, partly natural, and suggests a date of 8,000 B.C., contemporary to the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley. Others have suggested a date of 12,000 years.
The preliminary reports from the fist Americans to dive the sites:
Just back (May 1998) from diving two of the eight known sites are Mike Arbuthnot, an amateur underwater archeologist adventurer, and Boris Said, Executive Producer of the NBC documentary, "Mystery of the Sphinx." Both are experienced divers. Arbuthnot explored a three-mast schooner wrecked off Grand Cayman Island, and Said has been diving for 40 years.
It was treacherous terrain even for experienced divers. "The Yonaguni site is fairly near the shore, so there was heavy surge (the up and down motion of waves) as well as swift currents, and sharks," says Arbuthnot. "One the up side, the area has the third clearest water in the world, with visibility to 200 feet. And the corals were gorgeous."
"The two sites are very different, though both are at a comparable depth, 60 to 100 feet beneath the ocean’s surface. The Yonaguni site might be ceremonial platforms, and the Okinawa site seems similar to a castle wall, a conjecture that is supported by nearby castles on the island with a similar architectural style," says Arbuthnot.
Arbuthnot says that when he came up after the first dive, at Yonaguni, he found little to suggest that it was man made. It was only after diving the Okinawa site, and interviewing Prof. Kimura for two days, that he began to entertain the notion. The conversations with Prof. Kimura were all the more productive and in-depth, with the translating skills of Corina Tettinger, who speaks fluent Japanese.
"The case for the sites being artificial, or modified by man, requires supporting evidence," he says, and "we found very precise rectilinear stone features that seem to be indicative of either artificial tooling, or modifying the natural geology."
A particularly intriguing find: holes in the rock platforms. Could these be post holes to support a wooden structure? The terraces are massive, by human standards. But we can imagine naturally terraced platforms easily utilized for ceremonial purposes with the addition of wooden structures built atop them. You’d simply need to insert the supporting beams into the rock, by drilling a few holes.
"What we were able to observe was fascinating and warrants additional research," he says. "There is some false information on the sites out there. We want to bring clarity to the situation, and intend to mount a full-scale scientific expedition to do further investigation."
We'll report new developments on this project as they happen.
Geologist Robert Schoch and Egyptologist John Anthony West (both featured in the NBC documentary "The Mystery of the Sphinx") dove many months ago at Yonaguni, also without arriving at any conclusions, only more questions. Schoch focused on determining what geological forces might have been at work here.
While he notes that the strong currents might have cut the terraces out of the layered sediments, he has not ruled out human modification. Schoch says he very much wants to go back to dive again before arriving at any conclusions.
"I have not seen the other sites," he says, "and, not having previous diving experience, I spent much of my time underwater just staying alive."
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Man Gets Hoof In Mouth At Strip Club?
Man Sues Strip Club: Dental Work Dinged by Stripper Shoes?
By Josh Hart
Feb 28, 2011
A man has sued a strip club and wants his dental work paid for after he claims a stripper was performing on stage and during her routine, one of her stripper shoes flew of her foot, injuring him.
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| Man Sues Strip Club: Dental Work Dinged by Stripper Shoes? |
The man claims the high heel shoe then flew through the air and slammed into his mouth and chipped his two front teeth, a United Press International report claims.
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The bar patron said he was 20 feet from the stage, but the heel caused damage to his dental work and he had to get caps on his teeth.
He now claims that thanks to the high kicking stripper he will need "lifelong dental work."
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CBS News reveals Jake Quagliaroli claims in his lawsuit that he will suffer "lifelong dental injuries" after the erotic performance at PT's Showclub in Indianapolis, Indiana left him with the alleged injuries.
His lawyer says he believes the club should pay.
"The fact is that (Quagliaroli) walked into someplace and wasn't anticipating injury, and walked out of there with chipped teeth and potentially lifelong dental injuries," said Ali Saeed, his lawyer.
UFOtos from an X Air Force pilot seen recently on a China Flyover...
Can't give you any additional information except that the USAF wanted to see the photos then said nothing about what it was...
Otherwise, they would have to kill you...
It Came From Beneath The Ice? The Beast From 4 Km? You Name The Movie: Russians To Penetrate Antartic Primordial Lake 4 Km Under Ice, 14 Million Years Old!
Ancient Antarctic lake may erupt if drilled
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Michael Field in Auckland
Agençe France-Presse
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Wednesday, 20 August 2003
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The cryobot ice submersible, bound for Jupiter's moon, Europa, which scientists would like to test in Lake Vostok (JPL) |
Plans to drill into an ancient lake deep under ice in Antarctica may lead it to erupt in a massive geyser-like explosion, scientists have warned.
Lake Vostok in Antarctica has spent 15 million years under 4 km of ice, its waters sealed off from air and light for all that time under the tremendous pressure of the continental ice sheet. The 14,000 km2 lake, about 1,300 km from the South Pole, is one of the world's largest and scientists believe that it could offer unique research opportunities.
But despite opposition from environmentalists who fear drilling into the lake could destroy it, Russian scientists plan to cut through the ice until they come close to the surface of the lake.
U.S. scientists are also interested in drilling into the lake to see if any life forms can exist there, a finding which could lend weight to theories that life exists in other extreme environments such as other planets.
But these projects may be set back by a scientific paper in the latest issue of the journal, Geophysical Research Letters.
Dr Chris McKay at the NASA's Ames Research Centre in California warns that whoever drills into Vostok will have to be extremely careful.
He said the high gas concentrations believed to be present in Vostok "may result in a vigorous gas-driven flow if lake water is brought to the surface. "
He said the concentration of pent-up nitrogen and oxygen in lake water, under a pressure of 2.5 litres per kg, is about equal to that of "an unopened can of Coca Cola".
Burst like a can of soft drink
"The effects of rapid degassing of Coca Cola are well known," McKay said, adding that like the soft drink, the lake can be opened, but very carefully.
"Our research suggests that U.S. and Russian teams studying the lake should be careful when drilling because high gas concentrations could make the water unstable and potentially dangerous," McKay said. Research indicates the oxygen levels in lake water may be 50 times higher than the oxygen levels in ordinary freshwater lakes.
"Lake Vostok is an extreme environment, one that is super-saturated with oxygen," he said. "No other natural lake environment on Earth has this much oxygen."
Research also suggests that organisms living in Lake Vostok may have had to evolve special adaptions, such as high concentrations of protective enzymes, to survive the lake's oxygen-rich environment. Such defence mechanisms may also protect life in Lake Vostok from oxygen radicals, the dangerous by-products of oxygen breakdown that cause cell and DNA damage.
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| A satellite photo with Lake Vostok highlited |
In 1957 the Soviet Union erected its first Antarctic base at Vostok, in part of the territory claimed by Australia. Only in 1994 did they realise they were above a lake equal in area to Lake Ontario, on the border between the U.S. Canada, but up to four times as deep.
The Soviets drilled 3.62 km into the protective shell of ice, but stopped when poised a just few hundred metres above the liquid water. When they pulled out core samples, they filled the hole with kerosene and freon to keep it from collapsing.
Dr David Karl, an oceanographer of the University of Hawaii said the sample, which is still at Vostok, was so clear "you could read a newspaper through this ice core. This is the best sample we have of the open lake, at least until the point the ice is drilled."
Intrusion into unique environment
But some scientists are concerned about intrusions into such a pristine environment. "It doesn't know anything of human beings, fossil fuels or plastics," said Dr Robin Bell, a geophysicist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, speaking about the lake. "It is a window into life forms and climates of primordial eras."
Environmenatlists have also voiced objections. The Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition, a U.S. group based in Washington, called for a moratorium on drilling into Vostok. Any new technology to drill should first be tested on any of the 70 other lakes in Antarctica, they said.
The biggest push to explore the lake comes from the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the its leading space studies centre, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, both of whom want to study the internal environment of Lake Vostok in preparation for a mission to Jupiter's icy-encrusted moon, Europa.
The New Zealand-based Royal Forest and Bird Society is also opposed to the drilling. "It does seem strange to us that in order to find life on another planet they want to drill into Lake Vostok and contaminate it," the society's Barry Weeber said.
Julie Palais, glaciology program manager for the US National Science Foundation's Office of Polar Programs, said it may take more than a decade for drilling to happen.
"As a scientist you don't want your gravestone to read that this is the person who contaminated one of the last frontiers on the planet," she said.
Related Stories
Coast Guard RDF Station Swamped By Tsunami
The Demise Of Scotch Cap Light Station
By Dennis Dowling
About the Author Dennis Dowling RM2c USCGR 1944-46 St. Paul Island winter of '45-46. He was in the USN (active) 1951-52 at Panama Canal Zone '51-52
Here's the written part.
We were on St. Paul Island on April 1, 1946, at the twin HF/DF station to the HF/DF station on Unimak…We left St Paul on April 20, 1946 and picked up the fellows from the HF/DF station….All of us USCGR had to be out by June 30, 1946. Our enlistments were for DOW+ six months (duration of war). The war officially ended Dec. 31, 1945..There were 143 passengers on the USCGC Cedar when we got to Ketchikan.
Dennis Dowling RM2c USCGR 1944-1946
MEMORANDUM KEPT BY CHIEF RADIO ELECTRICIAN HOBAN SANFROD U.S. COAST GUARD
St 0130 Xray, 1 April, 1946, at which time I was awake and reading, a severe earthquake was felt. The building (CG Unit 369 - Unimak A/F station) creaked and groaned loudly. Objects were shaken from my locker shelve. Duration of the quake was approximately 30 to 35 seconds. The weather was clear and calm.
Knowing that the volcanoes to Northward of the building had been active at one time, I immediately looked in that direction for signs of renewed activity and upon seeing none, made a round of the building to see what, if any, damage had been caused by the tremor. Inspection failed to reveal any damage other than objects shaken from locker shelves. The crew were all awakened by the quake.
Intending to call Scotch Cap Light Station on the phone to ascertain if they had felt, or been damaged by the quake, I went to the phone in operations but Pitts, RM2c, who was on watch at the Light Station, had said that he was "plenty scared" and was going to call Dutch Harbor Navy Radio to see what information that unit might have regarding the earthquake.
At 0157 Xray a second severe quake was felt. This one was shorter in duration lasting approximately 15 to 20 seconds, but harder than at 0130 Xray. I again looked towards the mountains for any signs of volcanic activity, but still could see none. I made a second round of the building to see if any damages had resulted but none was apparent.
The crew was gathered in the Recreation Hall discussing the shocks, their probable cause and location when a crew member stated he had talked with Scotch Cap Light Station after the second shock and they were attempting to contact Dutch Harbor Radio for any news of the quakes.
At 0218 Xray a terrible roaring sound was heard followed almost immediately by a very heavy blow against the side of the building and about 3 inches of water appeared in the galley recreation hall and passageway. From the time the noise was heard until the sea struck was a matter of seconds. I should say retentive and ten seconds at most. Ordering the crew to get to the higher ground of the DP/DF building immediately. I went to the control room and, after a couple of calls to Kodiak and Adak Net Control Stations, broadcast a priority message stating we had been struck by a tidal wave and might have to abandon the station, and that I believed Scotch Cap Light Station was lost.
(Message: PPP NMJ, NNA NNFV NNBE TIDAL WAVE MAY HAVE TO ABANDON THIS PLACE X BELIEVE NNHX LOST INT R INT R XXX)
Received no answer to calls or receipt for message and did not know until daylight that the receiving antennae had been carried away. electric power was fluctuating badly and starting for the generator room to ascertained cause and extent of damage, I found that D’Agostino, ET, and Campanaro,RM 2c, had voluntarily remained behind to assist.
Water had struck the switchboards through a burst in door, and the voltage control regulator was burning on the back of the board. ET D’Agostino used a CO2 extinguisher while I shut down the generator. This placed the station in darkness.
Campanaro found and lit a kerosene pressure lantern and we proceeded to make emergency repairs. The switchboards were shunted and the generator connected directly to the line. This restored lighting and some power circuits. Campanaro was sent to call back some members of the crew to get more clothing and canned goods to be taken to the DP building in case of a second wave. While crew member were thus engaged, D’Agostino and myself made a rapid survey of damage. At 0345 I went to edge of hill above Scotch Cap Light Station to observe conditions there. The way was littered with debris, and the Light Station had been completely destroyed. I returned to the DF Station and with D’Agostino, continued cleaning up water and muck about generators. At 0550 had one generator running full power, at this time transmitted a dispatch to the DCGO 17 ND via Kodak re conditions. At 0700 went down to the site of the Light Station, the sea by this time having receded to its usual limits, and in company with several crew members searched among the debris for any signs of bodies of personnel, on top of hill behind the Light Station we found a human foot, amputated at the ankle, some small bits of intestine which were apparently from a human being and what seemed to be a human knee cap. Nothing else was found. At 0725 was informed Sarichef Beacon heard. At 0800 sent out searching parties to attempt locate any trace of Scotch Cap personnel. Searching parties later returned and reported no trace of Scotch Cap personnel. Searching parties later returned and reported no trace of the Light Station crew. The crew of the legislation was comprised of Petit CBM, Oinc: Pickering , MoMM2, Dykstra, S1c: Ness S1c, and Colvin F1c
Searching parties were out daily when ever weather permitted until 20 April when CBM, Sievers of CGC CLOVER, which was establishing a temporary light on the site of the destroyed light, located a body which was identified as Paul J Ness S1c, a member of the Light Station crew. The body was viewed by several crew members and myself and all agreed that is was Ness, who had high cheek bones, slightly prominent upper incisor teeth and a small goatee. The pharmacist mate from unit 368 had been observing the large toes of both feet of Ness and the nails were pared away from the sides. This condition, also existed in the feet of the body. the remains were wrapped in an old blanket and canvas and removed to above the high water mark, pending burial instructions from DCGO 17ND. On 22 April at 1030 CBN Sievers who was conducting a search to eastward, returned to Unit 368 and stated he had found another body. With several crew members I proceeded on to the location, but was unable to identify the body. The body was decapitated, disemboweled, and in a poor state of preservation. A homemade monel ring on the right hand could not be identified by any member of the crew of Unit 368.
At 1100 crew members who had been searching to westward reported they had found the right thigh and foot of a man. The foot could not be identified. these remains were gathered in old mail sacks and placed in a rough coffin. The body of Ness was placed in an individual coffin.
At 1545 23 April, the body of Ness was buried in an individual grave. The unidentified portions of bodies were buried in a common grave adjacent thereto. The graves are at the seaward edge of the western bank of the first ravine to the eastward of Scotch Cap Light Station and are approximately 300 yards from the site of the light, near the graves of two Russian seamen. The graves are plainly marked with white wooden crosses with brass plates securely attached, and are well covered with rocks to discourage depredation by animals.
The area covered by searches was approximately 5 miles eastward, 4 miles westward from Scotch Cap Light Station, and inland to the high water mark of the tidal wave.
Photos From The Era
All Photos By Jeano Campanaro who was stationed at the Unimak HF/DF station that was 35 meters (115 Feet) higher than the sea,
More On The Missile...Publish
China Fired Missile Seen In Southern California
Wayne Madsen Report
November 12, 2010
Pentagon and its embedded media covering up Chinese show of force off LA
China flexed its military muscle Monday evening in the skies west of Los Angeles when a Chinese Navy Jin class ballistic missile nuclear submarine, deployed secretly from its underground home base on the south coast of Hainan island, launched an intercontinental ballistic missile from international waters off the southern California coast. WMR’s intelligence sources in Asia, including Japan, say the belief by the military commands in Asia and the intelligence services is that the Chinese decided to demonstrate to the United States its capabilities on the eve of the G-20 Summit in Seoul and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Tokyo, where President Obama is scheduled to attend during his ten-day trip to Asia.
The reported Chinese missile test off Los Angeles came as a double blow to Obama. The day after the missile firing, China’s leading credit rating agency, Dagong Global Credit Rating, downgraded sovereign debt rating of the United States to A-plus from AA. The missile demonstration coupled with the downgrading of the United States financial grade represents a military and financial show of force by Beijing to Washington.
The Pentagon spin machine, backed by the media reporters who regularly cover the Defense Department, as well as officials of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), and the U.S. Northern Command, is now spinning various conspiracy theories, including describing the missile plume videotaped by KCBS news helicopter cameraman Gil Leyvas at around 5:00 pm Pacific Standard Time, during the height of evening rush hour, as the condensation trail from a jet aircraft. Other Pentagon-inspired cover stories are that the missile was actually an amateur rocket or an optical illusion.
Experts agree that this was a ballistic missile being fired off of Los Angeles. Pentagon insists it was a jet aircraft or model rocket.
There are no records of a plane in the area having taken off from Los Angeles International Airport or from other airports in the region. The Navy and Air Force have said that they were not conducting any missile tests from submarines, ships, or Vandenberg Air Force Base. The Navy has also ruled out an accidental firing from one of its own submarines.
Missile experts, including those from Jane’s in London, say the plume was definitely from a missile, possibly launched from a submarine. WMR has learned that the missile was likely a JL-2 ICBM, which has a range of 7,000 miles, and was fired in a northwesterly direction over the Pacific and away from U.S. territory from a Jin class submarine. The Jin class can carry up to twelve such missiles.
Navy sources have revealed that the missile may have impacted on Chinese territory and that the National Security Agency (NSA) likely posseses intercepts of Chinese telemtry signals during the missile firing and subsequent testing operations.
Japanese and other Asian intelligence agencies believe that a Chinese Jin-class SSBN submarine conducted missile “show of force” in skies west of Los Angeles.
Asian intelligence sources believe the submarine transited from its base on Hainan through South Pacific waters, where U.S. anti-submarine warfare detection capabilities are not as effective as they are in the northern and mid-Pacific, and then transited north to waters off of Los Angeles. The Pentagon, which has spent billions on ballistic missile defense systems, a pet project of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, is clearly embarrassed over the Chinese show of strength.
Likely route of Jin-class submarine from Hainan base.
The White House also wants to donwplay the missile story before Presidnet Obama meets with his Chinese counterpart in Seoul and Tokyo. According to Japanese intelligence sources, Beijing has been angry over United States and allied naval exercises in the South China and Yellow Seas, in what China considers its sphere of influence, and the missile firing within the view of people in Southern California was a demonstration that China’s navy can also play in waters off the American coast.
For the U.S. Navy, the Chinese show of force is a huge embarassment, especially for the Navy’s Pacific Command in Pearl Harbor, where Japan’s December 7, 1941 attack on the fleet at Pearl Harbor remains a sore subject.
In 2002, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice reportedly scolded visiting Chinese General Xiong Guankai, the deputy chief of staff for intelligence of the People’s Liberation Army, for remarks he allegedly made in 1995 that China would use nuclear weapons on Los Angeles. Xiong denied he made any such comments but the “spin” on the story helped convince Congress to sink billions of additional dollars into ballistic missile defense, sometimes referred to at “Star Wars II.”
Missle Launched Near California Might Be Saying "Yes We Can"...
I have enough experience seeing jet airplanes and this footage is NO jet.
Bachelor Cooking: A Quick And Easy Breakfast At Work,
A big problem for guys rushing to work is how to have breakfast fast, cheap and more importantly inexpensive.
I have a simple approach...
Get some Walmart Instant Oats
and keep it in your lockers. Cost? About $1.75.
Put this in a styrofoam coffee cup (remember, cheaper and more environmentally friendly to throw away than wash. Carbon footprint.)
Fill the cup with water to cover the oats. For a sweetner, you can use some tubs of honey from the cafeteria (free in most places) or else you can add two coffee creamers or some Walmart brand cola.
Microwave for about 2 minutes and you have a low sugar high oats cholesterol cutting breakfast to keep you most of the day!
Turbines and Smokin' Alternative Energy...
WHAT WE DON'T SEE OR HEAR ABOUT.......
Boy they really burn good don't they.
My How The World Has Changed...
1910 Ford Model R
Show this to your friends, children and/or grandchildren!
THE YEAR IS 1910
This will boggle your mind, I know it did mine!
************ ********* ***********
The year is 1910
One hundred years ago.
What a difference a century makes!
Here are some statistics for the Year 1910:
************ ********* ************
The average life expectancy for men was 47 years.
Fuel for this car was sold in drug stores only.
Only 14 percent of the homes had a bathtub.
Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.
There were only 8,000 cars and only 144 miles of paved roads.
The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.
The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower !
The average US wage in 1910 was 22 cents per hour.
The average US worker made between $200 and $400 per year ..
A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year,
A dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.
More than 95 percent of all births took place at HOME .
Ninety percent of all Doctors had NO COLLEGE EDUCATION!
Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which
Were condemned in the press AND the government as 'substandard.'
Sugar cost four cents a pound.
Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.
Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.
Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used Borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from entering into their country for any reason.
The Five leading causes of death were:
1. Pneumonia and influenza
2. Tuberculosis
3. Diarrhea
4. Heart disease
5. Stroke
The American flag had 45 stars ....
The population of Las Vegas , Nevada , was only 30!!!!
Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn't been invented yet.
There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day.
Two out of every 10 adults couldn't read or write and
Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school..
Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at the local corner drugstores.
Back then pharmacists said, 'Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind,
Regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health'
( Shocking? DUH! )
Eighteen percent of households had at least one full-time servant or domestic help ....
There were about 230 reported murders in the ENTIRE U.S.A. !
I am now going to forward this to someone else without typing it myself.
From there, it will be sent to others all over the WORLD - all in a matter of seconds!
Try to imagine what it may be like in another 100 years.
IT STAGGERS THE MIND
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Money, Fear and Manipulation of the People By the Banking Industry
S&P downgraded the U. S. to a AA+ rating or something like that from an AAA rating. The Wall Street Journal reported on another company that downgraded the U. S. two weeks earlier but because they were "small potatoes" no one gave it much credence. Meanwhile, Mr. Buffett wants to give the U. S. a AAAA rating. So what gives?
Right now we have market volatility. My advice, buy. When things drop, buy. The dramatic swings are nothing more than the rich grabbing and selling on the upswing. Profits are to be made. Don't blame Obama, or Congress. I bet a favor got called in. Right now the rich are seeking more wealth. Then they open up the lending floodgates to get us to buy all this crap back that they are currently taking away. And they'll do it at money the banks borrowed at less than 1% through 2013.
Cash for clunkers took alot of parts off the inventory shelf in terms of salvage yards. Manufacturing up? Yep! You have to get new parts now for your car. Shareholders get their dividend.
My advice, BUY.
My prediction: The Market WILL break 1400. Volatility will make it happen.
11 August 2011 in Commentary | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)